1. Define the term ‘organizational transformation’. Discuss the variousStrategies to manage transformation in organizations.

The term ‘organizational transformation’ refers to such activities as reengineering, redesigning and redefining business systems. The enablers for transforming organizations are information and technology.

Strategies to manage transformation in organizations

Transformation through values

As the business environment changes, values provide the guiding force for organizations. Values are a collection for ethics or ideals. Organization must define values that are:

i. Aligned with societal valuesii. Are not driven by basic human urges

iii. In line with their main purpose and operating contextiv. Open to the changing world order

Transformation through organization development

It rests on 3 basic prepositions:

i. Organizational change is driven by the era in which it is taking place. So organizations need to adapt, revitalize and rebuild based on changing environment.

ii. The climate within the organization must change for overall change to take place.iii. Individuals within the organization must be aware of the societal and environmental changes

happening around them.

Hence, the key message of organization development is that the world is changing rapidly and organizations need to adapt accordingly.

Transformation through reengineering

Reengineering is the process of reinventing which challenges the very core of the operations. It seeks to improve the way of doing business by establishing a new and better way of functioning.

Transformation through McKinsey’s plan

The McKinsey’s plan is a ten-point guideline:

i. Organize primarily around processes, not tasks.ii. Flatten the hierarchy by minimizing subdivisions.

iii. Make senior management responsible for processes and process performance.iv. Align key performance indicators and their evaluation to customer satisfaction.v. The organization’s performance and design should focus on teams, not individuals.

vi. Frequently combine managerial and non-managerial activities.vii. Work towards developing multiple competencies in individuals.

viii. Communicate and train staff on a just-in-time, and need-to-perform basis.ix. Enhance contact across the organization with suppliers and customers.x. Don’t just reward individual performance. Extend the reward process to cover individuals

skill development and team performance as well. Transformation through competitive benchmarking

Competitive benchmarking is ongoing process wherein the organization’s products, services and practices are measured against industry leaders and key competitors.

Transformation through six sigma

Six Sigma is a statistical parameter that is used to describe variation from set standards. It could be expressed, for example, as ’35,000 defects per million operations’ or ‘not more than 3 defects per million’. It is sharply focused on achieving tangible results within aspects that are relevant to the business. It is usually driven by trained employees from various sectors within the organization.

Transformation through Kaizen principle

Kaizen principle involves change through continuous improvement by taking small, comfortable steps. This principle can be further explained through the following points:

i. Small improvementii. Conventional knowledge

iii. Personal involvementiv. Many peoplev. Improve the process

vi. Standardize- Do-Check-Act to Plan-Do-Check-Act

2. Describe Integrative Model for Planned Change.

Bullock and Batten proposed the integrative model to describe both the temporal states and the change processes involved in planned change. This model is based on the principle that organizations at different times, exist in different states so, planned change can occur from one state to another.

Exploration Phase

This phase is characterized by exploring the organization in terms of its preparations for a specific change and committing its resource toward that change. Here a search process begins but the organizational members who are aware of the need for change wherein organization development resources and assistance are sought followed by consultation from an organization development expert. The change requirements are then assessed mutually by the consultant and organizational members. The expert’s capability is assessed by the members of the organization, while the consultant assesses the organization’s sense of commitment and readiness for change as well as the availability of necessary resources. The terms of work, mutual expectations, and factors related to cost and time and the rules of the consulting relationship are settled by both sides.

Planning Phase

The planning phase involves collection of the vital information in order to analyze the functioning of the organization, the sources of the issues/problems and understanding the resources that are committed towards organizational development. The goals for change and the design of the action plan are worked out by the consultant and the members so as to bring about organizational change and improvement. To avoid problems at a later stage, the approval of key decision makers is required for the proposed changes as they have an understanding of the overall perspective about future strategies.

Action Phase

This phase focuses on the transition of the organization from the current state to a target state as the implementation of the changes delineated in the planning phase are put into action and processes required for transition to takes place. Intermittent monitoring and evaluation of the change activities

is done to ensure effectiveness of the initiative and to assess the progress so that corrective measures could be taken to achieve the desired results.

Integration Phase

Once the successful implementation and stabilization of the change initiative takes place, the consolidation and integration of the initiative in organizational functioning takes place in this phase through reinforcements such as regular feedback, rewards and incentives. The plans are drawn to ensure that the new behavior is maintained and the contract with the organization development expert is brought to a close.

3. The key purpose of communication of change is to ensure that the individuals understand what is going to happen and what is expected from them. Explain some other important needs for communicating change. Also explain the major methods and techniques for communicating change. Explanation of important needs for communicating changeThe important needs for communicating change are:

To pay adequate attention to the diverse interests, (including gender differences), power relationships, and actions that may create resistance to the proposed change

To make people understand the inevitability of the changes and the best ways of coping and surviving with the change.

To ensure that the people share similar values and are aware of what action are appropriate to these values, to have consistency in actions and words, communication of change is required

Explanation of methods and techniques for communicating change Spray and pray

As the name suggests, as this technique, employees are provided a lot of information and expected to understand what is important and relevant what is not. The basis of the theory is ‘more is better’. Managers feel satisfied that they have provided all the information possible and employees are satisfied because they are kept in the loop. However, the disadvantage here is that employees are mostly unable to filter out the important points from the whole information. They may understand what is happening but do not understand the reasons and are overwhelmed by all the information.

Tell and sellThe employees are provided that information which pertains only to core organizational issues. Here, change manager try to both inform staff about changes and persuade them that the changes are necessary and good. The disadvantage of this strategy is that mostly employees become skeptical about the change since they have not been adequately prepared and end up being just passive recipients of round after round of change proposals.

Underscore and exploreThe focus in this strategy is on the core issues of the impending change, and employees get to participate in a dialogue with the management regarding the change process. During the dialogue, they try to recognize challenges and possible misunderstandings and ways to tackle them. This approach is most employee-friendly among all approaches described here.

Identify and replyThis strategy is largely defensive in nature, where only the rumors and misconceptions about work practices among the staff are recognized and addressed. It only attempts to help the employees reconcile to confusing problems of change. The disadvantage of this approach is that it is reactive and incorrectly assumes that employees understand the key strategic and organizational issues related to the change.

Withhold and uphold

The organization remains tight-lipped and secretive about the impending change and only discloses information when it is absolutely unavoidable to withhold it any longer. The management adopts a party line on issues which it uses in all public communication. This information is not accurate or comprehensive and is likely to engender negative work culture among the employees.

4 What do you mean by resistance to change? Discuss some of the reasons for individual (employee’s) resistance. Meaning of resistance to changeResistance to change represents an attitude or behavior that reflects an unwillingness to support change. Managers of organizations view resistance as an enemy of change, which must be overcome if a change effort is to be successful. The perspective is also reflected in Ansoff’s definition of resistance: ‘Resistance has been considered as a phenomenon that affects the change process, delaying or slowing down its beginning, obstructing or hindering its implementation and increasing its cost’.

Reasons for employee’s resistance1. Parochial self-interest: Some people fear the implications of change for themselves. They

feel they will lose something they value such as power, status, money etc.,2. Misunderstanding and lack of interest: At times people affected do not understand the

actual reasons and benefits of the change and mistrust of communication problem and people in the organization getting inadequate information.

3. Low tolerance to change: Some people are very keen on security and stability in their works and do not adapt to change by the very nature of their personality, or feel that they cannot cope with the changes that will affect them.

4. Different assessments of the situation: This condition arises when both the initiators of change and individuals affected by it disagree on the reasons for the change and on the advantages and disadvantages of the change process.

There are four common phases people typically go through when experiencing organizational change

1. Disorientations: The initial period is likely to be of disorientation whether an individual feels positive or negative about the change. Disorientation may manifest itself as shock, confusion, blame, denial or resistance.

2. Adaptations: Phase two marks the beginning of the adaptation to change and is usually the cause of considerable unfamiliarity, discomfort and apprehension. Team members level of concentration dips and this typically impacts the quality of performance.

3. Functioning: In this phase the employees start understanding the changes, accept new roles, become familiar with their new surroundings make new relationships and establish new and improved way of doing things.

4. High performance: If the changes are appropriate and their implementation is done well, the team’s performance should stabilize.

5 List the types of change management strategies. Explain any two of them. Listing the types of change management strategies

1. Normative Re-educative strategy 2. Rational empirical strategy3. Power coercive strategy4. Action-centered strategy

Explanation of any two change management strategies1. Normative Re-educative strategy

According to this strategy, change in the norms, attitudes and values of individual will lead to changes in behavior. It’s based upon the core beliefs, values, attitudes and assumes that with the change latitudes of the individual, change will occur and this makes the individual behave differently.

As per the normative re-educative strategy, people are social beings who stick to cultural norms and values. Here, change focuses on redefining the present values and norms and making people embrace these. Characteristically, people look for change solutions that fit their culture and tend to ‘go with the flow’. Thus, it is for the organization to identify the flow.

As behavior and practices (as required by the changed situation) are emulated by their followers, charismatic and dynamic leaders make effective change flow agents. At times, informal organization and communities of practices work well here.

2. Rational empirical strategyThe rational-empirical strategy of change management deals with the rationality of people to

embrace change for their self-interest. However, this can happen only through persuasion and detailed communication. Benefits of such change be made cleat. For instance, BHEL (Bharath Heavy Electricals Ltd.) and NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation) used this strategy to facilitate their change process and both were successful.

Organization should guard against risks involved with the change and also need to provide incentives for change. They need to make extensive use of training and communication to inform people that without change organizational sustainability will be at risk. Further, even that rational people can oppose the change move if they perceive the benefits to be small. While incentives are a short-term gain, long-term sustainability, ahead of competition, is substantially more rewarding

6 Write short notes:a. Kolb’s Learning CycleAmerican educationalist theorist, David Kolb, developed a model of experimental learning. The theory presents a cyclical model for learning, consisting of four stages. One may begin at any stage, but must follow each other in the sequence:

i. Concrete experience (or ’DO’)ii. Reflective observation (or ‘OBSERVE’)

iii. Abstract conceptualization (or ‘THINK’)iv. Active experimentation (or ‘PLAN’)

Kolb’s four-stage learning cycle shoes hoe concepts are being developed on the basis of reflection upon the experiences. These concepts help in guiding active experimentation and the choice of new experiences. In the first stage, that is concrete experience (CE), a learner experiences an activity such

as lab session or field work. He continuously reflects back on that experience in the second stage, i.e., reflective observation. In the third stage, i.e., abstract conceptualization (AC), the learner attempts to conceptualize a theory or model of what is observed. The fourth stage, active experimentation (AE), is where the learner tests a model or theory or plan for a forthcoming experience.

Kolb has also suggested that different individuals have different sets of preferences or styles in the way they learn. Some are activists in their approach to learn. They want to go from one experience to another to understand what it is that they need to learn, without reviewing how the last one went or planning what they would do differently, not necessarily embedding any learning. Some would like to reflect, or take into account others’ experience before they take action. The theorists can spend a lot of time making connections and seeing the bigger picture by putting the current situation into wider context, but they may not actually get around to doing anything. The pragmatists amongst us have a desire to relate what is happening to their own circumstances. Pragmatists may be so intent on ensuring that it is relevant to their job that they can easily dismiss something that does not at first appear that useful.

b. Psychodynamic Approach

The word psychodynamic is based on the idea that when individuals confront change from the external world, some internal psychological stages can be experienced by individuals. This idea was published by Elizebeth Kubler-Ross. The research was done in the area of terminal ill patients. Later research showed that individual going through changes within organizations can also have very similar experiences in lesser magnitude. These are described as five stages of change process and adjustments: Daniel, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. When people confront unexpected and revolutionary change that has a big impact on their current situations, they begin to experience these stages of change process and adjustments consecutively.

Relief: ‘At least I know what’s happening now, I had my suspicions, I wasn’t just being paranoid’.

Shock and/or surprise: Really a subset of denial but characterized by a sense of disbelief. Denial: Total non-acceptance of the change and may be ‘proving’ to oneself that it is not

happening and hoping that it will go away. Anger: Experiencing anger and frustration but in an unaware sort of way, that is, taking no

responsibilities for your emotions. Bargaining: The attempt to avoid the inevitable. Depression: Hitting the lows and responding (or being unresponsive) with apathy or sadness. Acceptance: The reality of the situation is accepted. Experimentation: After having being very inward looking with acceptance, the idea arrives

that perhaps there are things ‘out there’. Discovery: As you enter the this new world that has changed, there may be the discovery that

things are not as bad as you imagined. Perhaps the company was telling the truth when it said there would be new opportunities and a better way of working.